London offers to push yuan's globalization

Lord Mayor of the City of London Corporation Alderman David Wootton said here Tuesday that London wishes to enhance cooperation with China in making yuan a global currency.

The City of London Corporation aimed to make itself as the center for yuan businesses in the west and become a complementary, rather than competitive function apart from China's Hong Kong and other financial centers, Wootton said during a ten-day visit to China.

A report released Tuesday by the City of London Corporation showed that yuan deposits in London exceeded 109 billion yuan (17.2 billion U.S. dollars) as of the end of last year.

Of the sum, 35 billion yuan were client deposits, and the other being institutional deposits, according to the report.

These data indicated that the convertibility of the yuan, or renminbi, has gradually formed, which provides a valuable foundation for building London as a center for yuan business, the report said.

The City of London Corporation acts as the local authority for the Square Mile business. It provides financial services and other facilities for London and the wider United Kingdom.

Since the end of 2008, China has started currency swaps with neighboring countries and moved a step forward in July 2009 to launch a pilot program of cross-border settlement in yuan, in efforts to make yuan globalized.